Thursday, 3 May 2012

Where does YOUR karate come from?

Don’t worry this isn’t going to be yet another treatise
on the history of karate – we all know karate comes from Okinawa…

What I mean is where does YOUR karate come from in YOU?

You may be aware of the phrase Shin Gi Tai. This goes a long way to explaining where your karate
comes from but in my opinion it misses one important ingredient. Before I
reveal what that is lets explain what these terms mean:

Tai:
This means the body (e.g. tai sabaki –
body movement). It refers to the fact that to do karate well you must have
a fit, healthy body that is flexible, coordinated and strong. Our body must be
able to endure physical contact with another and react quickly to changing
situations. We achieve this kind of body through hard repetitive training of
the basics of our art as well as our own supplementary training.

Shin:
This
means the mind (e.g mushin – no mind;
shoshin – beginner’s mind, seishin – positive mind, zanshin – an aware mind). It
refers to the need to cultivate the correct mental skills to be a good karateka
such as developing a clear and uncluttered mind that is fully focused on the
task in hand whilst still maintaining a peripheral awareness of what is
happening around. It also refers to developing a positive, confident spirit,
one that will persevere with determination to achieve one’s goals.

Gi:
This
refers to technique. It’s no good cultivating the perfect body and mind if you
don’t know how to do any karate! Obviously you need to learn and practice a
range of karate techniques too.

We generally develop shin gi tai in parallel, improving in each one as we progress
through training, so you might consider that your karate comes from your body,
mind and good technique all combining together in a coordinated fashion . It’s
a very holistic approach – the end result being greater than the sum of the
parts; but for me there is an ingredient missing here…

I would argue that karate really comes from the heart.
The Japanese word for this is kokora. The
heart is the seat of passion, compassion, conviction not to mention courage. We
feel all these things in our hearts and it is these things that drive us to be
good karateka. We feel our karate in
our hearts; it virtually bursts out of us if we are doing it well.

If you look around the students in your dojo you can
see who has the heart for it and who doesn’t. Some will be sweating with the
effort, appear to be concentrating, even have reasonable technique but their
face tells you they have no heart for it, it looks expressionless and bored.
Others may still be out of shape, getting a little confused with the technique
but the look of joy and animation on their faces as they persist in trying to
improve tell you they have heart.

Having the heart for karate may save you one day – if you
lose heart you will lose the fight.

Each area is important. I believe the spirit, which is what I think of when I hear you say heart, is the most important part. If you are not prepared to prevail in any situation, neither six pack nor pretty technique will save you.

Development of the body or the techniques are just tools to make it easier to carry out your commitment to survive and prevail.

My heart (while not really Karate) is my absolute conviction that I will survive, no matter what.

Brett, surely that desire to really push the body comes from the heart?

John, loved your article too...

Journeyman, in my view heart and spirit are not quite the same thing. It's that real yearning and desire that makes you carry on even when the spirit is starting to weaken. Not sure I can explain it any better....